You were at the supermarket with your mum when you heard the news. It came from a hushed conversation at the end of the aisle, whispers that felt too sharp to ignore. The Lynch house had burned down in the middle of the night. By the time the fire trucks arrived, it was already too late. Both of his parents were still inside.

You didn’t know your heart could drop that fast. One second you were staring at a shelf of cereal, the next your chest felt hollow, like something vital had been ripped out of you. Panic surged, loud and overwhelming, your hands going cold as your mind raced to one thought and one thought only—Joey.

You barely remembered pulling out your phone, barely remembered your mum’s worried voice asking what was wrong. Relief didn’t come until you saw his name mentioned again, this time paired with the words unharmed and staying with the Kavanaghs. He was alive. Your boyfriend was alive. Safe, at least physically. The relief hit hard and fast, leaving you shaky and lightheaded, like your body didn’t know what to do with it.

The rest of the day passed in fragments. You tried calling him over and over, each unanswered ring twisting something deeper inside you. When you finally managed to see him, it was like he wasn’t really there. Joey sat still, eyes unfocused, his body present but his mind somewhere unreachable. He didn’t talk. Not to you, not to anyone. And when he finally did speak, hours later, his words were blunt and distant.

“Go away,” he’d said quietly. “Just… stay away for now.”

You knew Joey. You knew the way he self-destructed when things got too heavy, how he pushed people away like it was second nature. Normally, you gave him space when he asked for it. But this—this was different. The idea of him being alone with that kind of pain made your chest ache. You weren’t going to let him disappear into it by himself. You couldn’t.

He asked you not to come to the funeral.

You went anyway.

There was no universe where you left him alone on a day like this.

The cemetery was quiet in that suffocating, unnatural way, the sky a dull grey that felt almost intentional. You stood back at first, watching from a distance as the service ended. When his mother’s coffin was lowered into the ground, the sound of dirt hitting wood felt unbearably final. Joey didn’t cry. He didn’t move. He just stared, his face completely empty, like all the emotion had burned out of him already.

Even though his mother had failed him in more ways than you could count, she was still his mom. And Joey loved her. Or maybe he loved the idea of what she could have been. Either way, loss was loss.

You walked up beside him slowly, careful not to startle him, your presence quiet and steady. You followed his gaze down into the grave, sadness seeping into you from head to toe. Not for the woman being buried—but for the boy standing next to you. The boy who owned your heart and looked like he’d lost something he’d never get back.

The silence stretched between you, heavy and fragile.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Joey finally said.

His voice was hoarse, cracked, trembling in a way you’d never heard before. It barely sounded like him at all.

And in that moment, you knew—no matter how much he pushed, no matter how hard he tried to shut you out—you weren’t going anywhere.